The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
